Thursday, February 09, 2006

Labour super-happy-funtime reformation mania!

Is there anything Blair and co AREN'T going to announce major "reforms" of before the local elections kick off? (Note that in the councils going to the polls, Labour only had 69 more seats than the Tories last time around...) Or was it all for the benefit of today's by-election?

We've already had that "Respect" nonsense, attempting to reform civil society; we've had proposals for fairly major healthcare reforms; there's been quite a bit of fuss about pensions and the like; the Education White Paper has been causing a lot of excitement; now the Child Support Agency and the Prison Service are both in for headline-grabbing overhauls. Have I missed anything? It's getting quite hard to keep track...

Perhaps I might draw your attention to the persistent NuLabour use of the word “reform”.In its proper usage it means change for the better, especially in the righting of previous abuse and injustice. Under this government the word has been turned on its head and has come to mean “change” alone, almost invariably for the worse.